Between Stimulus And Response
by IShouldBeWriting
Summary: Becker spends some time thinking about how far he's come after a wonderful date with Jess seriously tests his self-control. The next in my Breakable series, this follows after "Set Out Into The Deep"


~~oOOo~~

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. " -Victor Frankl

~~oOOo~~

She was exactly where he wanted her, had wanted her for months, and the irony of it was killing him. Jess' hips were slender and curved beneath his own and Becker was suddenly grateful that he hadn't changed out of his jeans in favour of more comfortable, loose-fitting lounge pants.

Drawing his weight back up onto his knees, he leaned forward to stroke and kneed his way down her spine again. Jess sighed softly and Becker couldn't help but think that this must have been a lot like what the Jesuit priests intended for themselves in performing flagellation as penance. With the temptation of Jess' body beneath him, Becker was having a hard time remembering his own name, much less why he'd once considered touching her to be sinful.

His fingers caught on the edge of Jess' thin vest and lingered as the fabric of her bra beneath it added a different texture. He continued his way down her covered back, rubbing strong circles along either side of her vertebrae as he went. When he reached the indent of her waist where her vest rode up to expose a couple inches of skin, he could no longer help himself. His hands left their prescribed pattern to trail feather-like back and forth across the smoothness of her skin earning him a quiet moan.

"You've wonderful, talented hands, Hilary," Jess mumbled quietly from her position pressed down into the softness of her bed, "but if you keep doing that, I truly can't be held responsible for my actions."

Becker leaned over her to brush a tender kiss to the tip of the mostly healed shoulder that she'd dislocated a few weeks ago. He stretched out beside her on the bed and stroked one finger delicately across the same shoulder yet again. Eyes closed, Jess gave him a lazy smile at the affectionate gesture. Becker had become rather obsessive about her shoulder since the injury. It'd begun with one hand lovingly placed behind it to prevent her from knocking into the doorframe of his truck when he escorted her home from hospital. His gentle touch in that one particular spot had become such a regular occurrence now that Jess sometimes found herself startled when he rested his hand elsewhere instead. It also served as a steady reminder of how far they had come from the incident on the firing range where he'd fallen apart in self-recrimination after touching her ribs and shoulder to show her the muscle spasms that were causing her aim to be off the mark.

Rolling onto her good side, Jess smiled at him.

"So, are you going to stay tonight?" she asked quietly in what had become a ritual for them both.

"Only if I sleep on the couch," he replied with a grimace. "Sorry, love, but you're not getting me to share a bed with you until you get that bloody plaster cast off your leg."

Jess giggled and Becker frowned back with indignation.

"It was bad enough having to endure Abby smirking at me when I was limping because you accidentally kicked me in the shins. She still thinks-"

"Yes," Jess purred, "I know exactly what she thinks. And you've a problem with that?"

"No, but-"

Before Becker could complete his reply, Jess lips had covered his in a lingering kiss that stopped him cold.

"What Abby thinks doesn't matter. What Connor thinks doesn't matter. I don't even care what Lester thinks," Jess added with a merry gleam in her eye. "And at the moment, you, my darling captain, are thinking entirely too much."

As her warm firm lips coaxed and teased at his mouth, Becker conceded in his head as how she had a point; he still had a tendency to over think things when he got nervous around Jess. And kisses like this one that filled him, left his mind blank with desire, made promises of so much more, kisses like this made him more than just a bit nervous. With Jess' arm wrapped low across his hips and her tongue begging for entrance, his nerves couldn't help but raise a clamorous outcry.

Becker broke off kissing Jess with a desperately frustrated groan.

"Jess," he warned as she made to reclaim his lips.

Jess backed away with an irritated sigh.

"At least tell me that you're backing off to make sure this is what you truly want. _That_ I think I can swallow."

He nodded in mute aggravation. Their mutual desire lay between them like a third person in the bed. Ragged and aching, he dropped a kiss lightly on her forehead and gathered his jacket to depart.

"Its not that I don't want you, Jess. But this isn't a game to me; if and when I stay the night in your bed, I don't have any intention of ever leaving again."

Jess sighed in frustration once more as she heard the door close behind him. This man and his morals and convictions were going to be the death of her. She stripped her bra off from under the vest, dumped it unceremoniously off the end of the bed, and slumped back down beneath her duvet. Reaching out to turn off the lamp, Jess instinctually grabbed the grey silk scarf off the bedside table and wound it loosely around her hand. It no longer smelled like him, but it was still a potent reminder when she woke up each morning cold and alone.

~~oOOo~~

Becker tossed his jacket onto the empty passenger's seat and slammed the door of his truck closed with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. He turned the key in the ignition, bringing the truck to life with a low muttered grumble from the engine. Carefully pulling out of his parking spot onto the deserted street, he flipped on the headlights and headed toward home.

It had been so very hard for him to leave Jess' side tonight. They'd had a lovely evening out to dinner together. Eschewing going out for a movie, Jess asked him to drive her back to the flat she shared with Connor and Abby, pleading exhaustion after a tough physical therapy session for her recently injured shoulder. Becker had been all too willing to spend the rest of the evening quietly talking with Jess instead. Despite how much she loved to talk, Jess was capable of being an excellent listener. He'd found himself revealing more and more about his past to her as the weeks since the accident went by. Stories he hadn't thought of in so very long of childhood antics with his brother had come tumbling back into his head in an effort to entertain her.

They'd been relaxing on the couch when he'd heard a quiet series of pops as Jess rose to get them each a glass of water. Wincing in sympathy, it'd seemed the most natural thing in the world to offer her a back rub. Far too much time spent recovering from injuries of his own made him highly empathetic of her current predicament. And in the privacy of his own head he wasn't so blind as to ignore that the excuse to touch her in such an intimate fashion had held no small appeal. It tested his discipline sorely, but every moment Becker got to spend being that close to Jess made it worth the balance he maintaind between chivalry and the modern world.

The first date they went on had taught him a valuable lesson in self-denial. They'd been watching a movie at his flat, Jess' body tucked carefully into his while her foot stuck out in front of her propped up on a stool. When the movie ended, he'd leaned over to give her a kiss. He'd intended for it to be gentle and loving but with the feel of her plump pliant lips beneath his own, it didn't stay that way for very long. He'd broken off, raw with desire and short of breath. It'd taken every ounce of self-control he possessed to send her home that night rather than inviting her into his bed.

The more time he spent with her, the more Becker wanted to be there beside her each morning when she woke. While she'd been in hospital, he'd been able to indulge himself in the luxury of being with her each morning under the guise of checking up on her recovery and paying chivalrous court to her. But as soon as she was released, he no longer had an excuse. Her flat mates took excellent care of her, and being near her through the night when the bed was big enough for two was more temptation than he could reasonably withstand.

Much as he was enjoying their growing intimacy, he was still trying to be cautious. He didn't want to repeat his mistakes, lead her on only to back away in frightened confusion when he needed to sort out his own head once again. The past few weeks had been an intensely difficult dance between the two of them as they tread the thin line between their mutual desire and his need to be sure he was making the right decisions.

In the meantime, Becker had spent more time on introspection than he'd ever bothered in his entire life. He'd been working so hard to dissect his childhood demons.

Twice a week Becker visited with Father Ferrick. It meant compromising on the time he would have preferred to spend with Jess, but she was insistent that right now this was more important. Father Ferrick guided Becker with carefully neutral questions as he considered his childhood and the confused notions of relationships he'd always held onto. Talking to the Father had finally allowed Becker to see how his brother's death had driven him from seminary just as much as anything else had at that point in his life. Not that he regretted the choice, but it was startling to realize that he'd had more motives than previously thought in choosing to enlist. Escaping his parents' grasp and the memory of their thinly concealed disgust at his younger brother's illness had been a giant component in the choices he'd made at the time. From the distance of where he was in life right now, how Becker could have put up with their abominable behaviour was still a mystery

He'd first become aware of the hypocrisy of his parents marriage a month after his return from Afghanistan. Confronting his father, he'd been met with a derisive bark of laughter and offered a glass of scotch. _Congratulations, son, you're man enough to finally see the truth of the world_, he'd said. _Besides, your mother's a frigid bitch, and a man has needs which must be tended to_. His mother's righteous indignation had been no better. Divorce? Heavens no! His father may have made a laughing stock of them both by shagging his way through their social circle but she would never consider openly bringing down such a scandal on both their heads.

Angry and confused at the time, Becker had jumped at the chance when his mates proposed a night out. He'd joined them with the express intent of drinking his way into forgetfulness. His parents had been holding him to a double standard his life entire and he felt suddenly liberated and reckless. Three clubs later he'd been cheerfully loose enough to flirt with one of the girls at the bar when she'd shown an interest. Later he'd tossed aside every moral standard he'd ever adhered to as they groped each other roughly back at her flat. He'd been too drunk for it to go any farther than that, a fact for which he was now obscenely grateful.

For a week he did nothing but drink, flirt, and make out with nameless, faceless, women he met in bars every single night. He hoped it would ease the ache he felt inside but the knot of disillusionment still sat tightly coiled within his belly. He'd woken Sunday morning to the sound of church bells and realized that his choice to rage and rebel was no better than the actions of his parents. He'd wanted nothing more than to scrub himself in the shower until he'd washed away every moment of the previous week's debaucheries.

Painful as it was to look back on the folly of that moment in his life, he could see how it had shaped him. When he was transferred on detachment to his new posting at the ARC, the environment had appeared to be a blessing. With very few women involved in the project, his focus had returned entirely to his military career. Reverting to the soulless perfection expected of a young officer had been an easy escape. In the end, it turned out that the first two years he spent at the ARC had done nothing more than temporarily bury the internal conflicts that his discovery of his parents' hypocrisy and lies had unearthed. But like most revelations, once seen, this one refused to be ignored.

He'd been vulnerable when he first met Jess he knew that now. The deaths and disappearances of so many of his colleagues in such a short period of time had gotten under his skin. The part that had disturbed him was that these people were civilians, not enlisted men and women who'd chosen a life of danger. After Sarah's death he'd been unable to continue, requesting and receiving reassignment. Given the secretive nature of the work performed at the ARC, he'd been given two months time on his own for decompression. There wasn't a therapist that the government and military would both agree to send him to given some of the things he'd witnessed.

Becker hadn't sought the help during those two months. When he was called back in to the ARC, re-interviewed for his position as SAS commander in charge of security, meeting Jess had been like having a sun dropped into the middle of his own personal solar system. Suddenly he had a centre to his orbit again. And as the weeks and months went by before Abby & Connor's return, he'd fallen into a new routine in which Jess had played a central role.

When Abby & Connor came back, something inside of him had begun to crack. Or perhaps, if he were to be honest with himself, it'd already been cracked and their return simply turned the crack into a gaping fissure. Watching that first time as Abby & Connor met Jess, he'd seen her with new eyes. He was no longer the tin man without a heart. Her genuine warmth and generosity snuck inside him under his skin and took up residence. And he realized that he had no desire whatsoever to dislodge the thought of her once it'd crept in to warm the corners left dark and cold by the mess that was his family.

He smiled faintly to himself as he realized that just thinking about her had turned his frustration to poetry. No doubt about it, he was well and truly wrapped around the fingers of the bright and bubbly woman who no doubt lay in her flat right now cursing him and his nobility.

It was late and he'd promised to join Father Ferrick early the next morning for a cup of coffee before matins. Sometimes a visit before or after work was all that Becker could squeeze in. This time, Becker looked forward to surprising the old priest with the clarity of his thoughts. It was past time for him to well and truly bury the past with the help of his former mentor.


End file.
